"Why," said I suddenly to my companion, "do you fear the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs getting wind of this discovery of yours?" Never shall I forget the effect of this apparently innocent question of mine! Never! CHAPTER SEVEN. IN STANTON STREET. "Why am I afraid that the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs may get wind of the discovery of those manuscripts which locate the exact whereabouts of the Lake of Sacred Treasure in Mexico?" repeated the Member of Parliament fiercely; and he came to a dead stop at the corner of the turning into Peter Street. "For the best of all reasons," he snapped. "He is the one man in the world I hate with all the force I am capable of. He has proved himself my evil genius. In politics, in preferment, in marriage he has beaten me every time we have come into conflict; and if he could only recover this possession for England--for, as you will find, this lake really belongs to this country and not to Mexico or to Spain or to the Jesuits--he would make himself that great, popular hero he is ever striving to become. How? you ask. In the most simple fashion. He would merely use all those millions that are to be recovered from its depths as baits for the electors, baits for payers of income-tax, men who drink spirits, enthusiasts about old-age pensions, better houses for the poor. Indeed, there is no end to the crazy ambition of this pinchbeck Napoleon. He lives simply to become the idol of the mob in such a way as England's history with all her Gladstones, her Beaconsfields, and other political leaders of real note, has never known--never. Even the popularity of the throne is not safe with so terrible a pride as his! He cares nothing for any personage or any institution. His one colossal lust is to lift himself so high that no man shall be his equal, but that his word shall travel through the Empire with a power which Bismarck never aimed at and even the German Emperor has never felt competent to aspire to.